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Sir Ahmed '''Salman Rushdie''' is one of the leading living novelists in the English language. His most famous work, ''Midnight's Children'', depicts the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in allegorical form. It won the [[Booker Prize]] for the best novel of the year by an author writing in English in a [[Commonwealth]] country or Ireland. It subsequently won the 'Booker of Bookers' for the best of the first 25 winners of the Booker Prize.

Sir Ahmed '''Salman Rushdie''' is one of the leading living novelists in the [[English]] language. His most famous work, ''Midnight's Children'', depicts the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in allegorical form. It won the [[Booker Prize]] for the best novel of the year by an author writing in English in a [[Commonwealth]] country or [[Ireland]]. It subsequently won the 'Booker of Bookers' for the best of the first 25 winners of the Booker Prize.

His later novel ''The Satanic Verses'' aroused controversy, angering many radical [[Muslim]]s who believed that Rushdie's portrayal of the [[Prophet Muhammad]] (an illustration of a legend surrounding the prophet) was heretical and irreverent. Rushdie's book tells the story of original instructions from Muhammad that the Muslim people should worship three ancient pagan goddesses that had been worshiped in Mecca before the time of [[Islam]]. According to the story, Muhammad later recanted the verses, saying that the devil had persuaded him to add them as blasphemies. In 1989, [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] of [[Iran]] declared a [[fatwa]] on Rushdie, mandating his execution under Islamic law. Because of this, Rushdie was forced to live in fear for his life,  under police protection for more than a decade.

His later novel ''The Satanic Verses'' aroused controversy, angering many radical [[Muslim]]s who believed that Rushdie's portrayal of the [[Prophet Muhammad]] (an illustration of a legend surrounding the prophet) was heretical and irreverent. Rushdie's book tells the story of original instructions from Muhammad that the Muslim people should worship three ancient pagan goddesses that had been worshiped in Mecca before the time of [[Islam]]. According to the story, Muhammad later recanted the verses, saying that the devil had persuaded him to add them as blasphemies. In 1989, [[Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini]] of [[Iran]] declared a [[fatwa]] on Rushdie, mandating his execution under Islamic law. Because of this, Rushdie was forced to live in fear for his life,  under police protection for more than a decade.